Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday August 15, 2009 @12:23PM
from the yes-it's-totally-reasonable dept.

Death Metal points out a CNet report saying that the Justice Department has come out in favor of the $1.92 million verdict awarded to the RIAA in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case. Their support came in the form of a legal brief filed on Friday, which notes, "Congress took into account the need to deter the millions of users of new media from infringing copyrights in an environment where many violators believe that they will go unnoticed." It also says, "The Copyright Act's statutory damages provision serves both to compensate and deter. Congress established a scheme to allow copyright holders to elect to receive statutory damages for copyright infringement instead of actual damages and profits because of the difficulty of calculating and proving actual damages."

I suppose this is what happens when you appoint a half-dozen ex-RIAA attorneys to top spots in the Justice Department. President Obama assured us that rules were put into place to prevent this sort of activity, but apparently that doesn't matter. Not that I'm the least bit surprised by that. Frankly, I think the Justice Department should have better things to occupy their time than civil lawsuits. That kind of bias ought to be considered malfeasance in office, or something else worthy of immediate dismissal.

1.92 million dollars for copyright violations by an individual? Now that's Justice for you. Personally, I've never believed that the law should be used to make examples out of people, no matter how distasteful their crimes. That simply breeds more disrespect for the law, which is something the RIAA is apparently unable to understand. They will continue to reap the rewards of that lack of understanding, regardless of what ultimately happens to Jammie Thomas.

Punishment should fit the crime: otherwise it is just government-sanctioned brutality.

You mention copyright violation by an individual. Well. as soon as it hits a P2P sharing program, it is no longer an individual. It is potentially everone on the planet.

Of course, the biggest limiting factor is knowledge. iTunes exists because people do not know how to obtain digital goods for free. The folks that know aren't paying any more, so the system is now supported on the backs of the ignorant.

Those layers are dumb as shit, but perhaps not dumb enough to not have heard about Mr. Fibonacci or binary trees (or they might have friends who would sooner or later tell them). That said, the "amortized damage" by an individual is still comparatively minor.

If you shoplift a candy bar and get caught they don't just ask for the money...

And if I lift a whole box of snickers (48ct) I'm probably not getting a million dollar fine. Even if I lifted a whole pallet of snickers boxes (let's say 1000 boxes) I still probably wouldn't get a million dollar fine. While file sharing is indeed illegal the punishments for these crimes seem to fly in the face of the 8th amendments provision against cruel and unusual punishments.

you know; you're so so right. In fact, if you think about it all the people who ever paid for an internet connection helped contribute to this by supporting the infrastructure used for all those people to "potentially" infringe.

I think everybody who ever used the internet should have to pay at least this much to the RIAA. They have (potentially) suffered so much. In fact, if you think about it, and multiply the number of potential people who could have copied by the number of potential people who could have been copied from by the number of potential songs that could have been copied by the maximum potential statutory damages, I think you'll find that their potential losses must run to more dollars than the number of atoms in the planet. We should just declare them galactic rulers and do their every bidding.

No, it isn't, unless you're talking about people breaking into your house and stealing your hard disk with the data.

Simple example to see the difference:

If I steal your cell phone, has anything been taken away from you? Definitely, yes.

If I copy the design of your cell phone and manufacture it on my own, has anything been taken away from you? Not really.

If you say that "profit" has been taken away from you, then that's not the same thing, as I could do that in other ways, by for instance speaking to my friends and telling them your phone sucks, causing them not to buy it. Have I stolen anything from you in that case, and are you going to take me to court for theft?

And for the record, I'm not anti-copyright, but still don't like the attempts to equate copyright with the ownership of a physical object. They don't work the same.

The problem here is the generic take without permission equal stealing ideology we have all been taught. If you take something that doens't belong to you without permision or a right to do so, people consider that stealing.

Where this breaks down is that the copyright hold has no control over you obtaining the materials. The only control they have is over who and how or when it is distributed. This control is a construct of law so downloading is not stealing because someone gave you permission to take the ob

No, a copyright is the exclusive right. If Alice took the right from Bob, it would mean that Alice could use the law to prohibit Bob from doing various things with the work. It is obvious, though, that if Alice unlawfully makes a copy of a sound recording Bob has the copyright to, that Bob can still do as he pleases with the sound recording, license it to others, etc.

So the right isn't stolen. Rather, the right is infringed upon, rather like if Alice trespassed onto Bob's land (which violates Bob's right to exclude others, but doesn't impact ownership), or if the government unconstitutionally censored Alice.

It is hard to imagine a way in which a copyright could be stolen. I suppose it might be possible via fraud, but in normal everyday life it just doesn't happen. Copyrights are infringed upon a great deal, but it just isn't the same.

The desire for accuracy when describing these issues is probably why the law itself refers to it as infringement, and not as theft, and why attempts to use anti-larceny statutes against copyright infringers have fallen flat at the highest levels.

The desire for accuracy when describing these issues is probably why the law itself refers to it as infringement, and not as theft, and why attempts to use anti-larceny statutes against copyright infringers have fallen flat at the highest levels.

I likely should not have used 'theft' to describe copyright infringement - it is a 'taking' in the sense of limiting the 'owner' of the 'property' (in this case the distribution rights to a file) from doing what the law says they are allowed to do and as such can c

it is a 'taking' in the sense of limiting the 'owner' of the 'property' (in this case the distribution rights to a file) from doing what the law says they are allowed to do

Well, no. Nothing has been taken away from the copyright holder, and the holder still has the legal right to exclude others from distributing the sound recording. Because the infringer is ignoring the exclusion, the holder will have to go to court to enforce his right. If the infringer ignores the court, the court will use the power of Un

SO when you take a copyrighted work and distributed it without the copyright owners consent, the legal right to exclusively control the copying and distribution of that work is still in tact and functioning? Nothing has been taken away?

You mean like when I buy a book, and then without the consent of the copyright holder, I sell the used book to someone else, as the law permits me to do per 17 USC 109? Just because the copyright holder doesn't consent to something, that doesn't make it illegal.

Actually, the effect of the right disappears while the act is happening.

No, if Alice has a copyright, and Bob infringes on it, Alice still has the right to license the copyright to Carol throughout the duration of Bob's infringement. Not one iota of the right 'disappears.'

Compare this with when the copyright terminates, then the copyright disappears as a matter of law, and Alice does indeed lose the right to license to Carol. Not that Carol minds; once the copyright has terminated, the work is in the publi

Oh, I assure you, I'm a real lawyer. I didn't go to law school for years and suffer through the bar exam just to be a fake lawyer, no sir.

"stealing" is NOT A LEGAL TERM OF ART. Infringement is stealing. Larceny is stealing. Theft is stealing. Conversion is stealing. Misappropriation is stealing. Plagiarizing is stealing. Copying is stealing.

So you're saying that when I quoted you here, since that was an act of copying, I stole from you? I find this difficult to believe.

Let me make a suggestion to you instead: When discussing legal issues, we should all avoid ambiguous and inappropriate terminology, so that we can all clearly understand one another precisely. Therefore, if 'stealing' is not a term of art, and if it is unclear what it does mean, exactly (I for one don't agree with your definition, and I know others who don't either), and where the term is pretty clearly an appeal to emotion, an appeal to apply norms which may not be a good fit, and meant to vilify those who it is used against, then I think we should not use it at all.

The term the law uses nearly to the exclusion of all else is 'infringement.' So we ought to use that term too.

The law doesn't describe anything as stealing in an official capacity

Great, then let's all agree to stop using 'stealing' or 'stole' or the like when discussing copyright. I'm already in favor of using the precise legal terminology, but if someone else invokes it (as happened earlier), I'm not above briefly discussing why it's inapt.

The problem here is the generic take without permission equal stealing ideology we have all been taught. If you take something that doens't belong to you without permision or a right to do so, people consider that stealing.

My own understanding is that "taking" refers to a physical objects, and as such, abstract things like ideas, designs and exclusivity do not apply.

What is stolen is the right to be in control to the extent the law allows. And yes, if you took my control over the copying and distribution of

Copyright law is currently held hostage by the cartels that are making all the money off it. I have no problem with anyone downloading any work that is over 20 years old, maybe even 10 years old. Those works should be in the public domain by any reasonable standard. Unfortunately, we don't have reason. We have monopolies that are allowed to control legislation, fix prices, exploit artists, and escape any prosecution for their own crimes. People talk about justice for content providers. Where is the justice for the consumer?

In general, art that becomes public domain becomes worthless to consumers. The value of art is virtually entirely derived from promotions. If there is no profit from promoting it, it goes unpromoted and vanishes from interest, most especially in the case of music. When music becomes public domain people will stop downloading or even listening to it, in favor of the big flashy new crap they see on MTV that people are getting sued and jailed fo

Oh noes!!! I read a chapter out of a book at a store today...STEALING! I recorded some music on my cell phone at a concert...STEALING! I recorded broadcast TV on my home DVR and took out the commercials...STEALING!

You holier-than-thou sanctimonious defenders of big business make me sick. They are out to get as much money as possible without any regard for ethics and people like you not only move out of the way, you defend their actions and allow them to shift terminology so copyright infringement becomes "stealing".

I'll ask one question. Are 24 songs worth utterly destroying somebody's life over, making them destitute and indebted to a soulless conglomerate of businesses?

[...] you're just wrong and rather ignorant of the complex interplay between work, production, economics and entertainment [...]

If you don't like how the major labels deal with production and distribution of their product, don't use them. Don't buy it. [...]

I wonder, do you understand the interplay
between work, production, etc.? Your advice is to boycott them, so they definitely won't see any cash out of you. So when you say "Don't steal[sic] it", you must be appealing to ethics, because you are just fine with the idea of hurting them economically. And we maintain that copyright law, in its present state and as applied to digitized fine art, is unethical. To put it very simply, it creates artificial scarcity where there is none. You can read Moglen, Stallman, Lessig for starters. They explain why US copyright law is broken and unjust, and imho they make a very strong case. Unless you are able to counter standard arguments, please do not tell us what not to do with Internet connections we paid for.

That's not stealing. THIS [wikipedia.org] is stealing. In that example hundreds of millions of people are actually deprived their intellectual property - not just a few songs either, but millions of audible and visual records of history and culture spanning the 75 years. And by stealing all history and culture for what is the lifespan of an average person they deprive us of the very continuity of culture we as humans require to remain oriented and purposeful. This is a very real harm.

Let's not lose our perspective on which is the greater wrong. It's actually comparing one person sharing a few songs to the literal Farenheit 451 [wikipedia.org] theft of an entire culture.

I also think that stealing (yep, that's the word) of commercial data isn't correct either.

Can you steal a piece of real estate? You can trespass on it, you can pollute it, you can economically damage rightsowners, but you can't steal it.

Published content is like land. You cannot own published content; you can only own rights to the content. If published content were actually privately owned, Congress would have no ability to expire a copyright. That would be like expiring your rights to own the shirt on y

Sorry, gotta call BS on this, AC. It's one thing to break the DMCA because you want backups of your own music, or you want to be able to play that music on a device that's not officially supported. But to simply copy the music because you don't want to pay for it is a choice, pure and simple. If you don't like the price, well, you don't need what they're selling, and you don't have to buy it.

Whether or not it's stealing is one thing. But it is indeed use without compensation. Buying from iTunes or Amazon or any number of other DRM-free vendors is a perfectly reasonable solution. To claim that it's rape is childish and ignorant because if you say "no" to their product, they won't take your money.

The problem is this: The USA copyright system was a contract nothing more. In return for a limited copyright We, The People got a richer public domain. Only now the contract has been completely broken thanks to treasonous bribery. Now copyrights will go on forever, because thanks to the large bribes...err I mean campaign contributions of multinational corporations (who could be argued are deciding most if not all of our laws now thanks to said bribes) they can just keep getting it extended for eternity.

The system is completely broken and I don't care which side you are on you should have ZERO support for this corrupted, perverted, disgusting use of bribes and political favors we now call the US copyright system. Want proof it is broken? One sentence: Steamboat Willie is STILL under copyright! The man has been worm food (or a popsicle, your choice) for nearly a half century and one of his FIRST works, made when airplanes were cloth and wood and antibiotics were just a dream in a doctor's eye, is STILL under copyright!!!

Until copyright laws are returned to their original lengths or WE, The People actually get a voice at the bargaining table, then ALL copyright laws in the USA should be looked upon as a broken contract and treated as the worthless piece of paper that they are. Because in the face of rampant corruption it is the ONLY choice left to you. They have locked our history behind paywalls, stolen our public domain away from us and our families, and use their offices for graft collection. To actually respect this cabal of greed and corruption? You are either insane or a fool.

When accusing record companies of being dishonest, it is important -- essential -- that we not spread lies as well. What is there to be gained? Seriously, Mr. MaskedSlacker -- with so many bad things that the record labels do, why make shit up? Why?

You're referring to the Universal price-fixing case of about a decade ago. It had absolutely nothing to do with collusion between record companies; it was all about a market technique called "minimum advertised pricing" -- known in the retail industry as MAP. Here's what happened:

Wal-Mart and Best Buy started getting into the business of selling CDs. Since the sale of CDs was just a lure to get customers into the store, they sold CDs at little or no margin.

A couple of record store chains that you might remember from your childhood, Tower Records being probably the one we all remember, went into freak-out mode and complained to the record labels that Wal-Mart and Best Buy were going to drive them out of business.

Universal stepped in and instituted a MAP program with these retailers. In this case the details were that Universal would give the record labels money to run advertising (called "co-op advertising" in the retail business) in exchange for not advertising CDs at below a certain price set by Universal.

At this point I should stop and point out that MAPs are still alive and well today. It's an interesting distinction -- authorized dealers are welcome to sell product at any price (otherwise it would be illegal), but if they advertise prices below a point set by the manufacturer, they don't get co-op money, or the best rebates, or other perks that authorized dealers typically get. A huge number of companies do MAPs, including companies well-loved by Slashdotters. Apple is one of them.

Anyway, back to 1999 or so:

Wal-Mart and Best Buy, upon hearing of Universal's authorized dealer MAP program, went to the government.

Wal-Mart and Best Buy having the weight they do, the government stepped in, agreed that Universal's MAP program was a little too close to price-fixing, told Universal to stop it immediately, and set up a program in which anybody who'd bought CDs at Tower Records or the other resellers could get some money back.

Tower Records, of course, went out of business shortly thereafter. They simply could not compete with Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

The price-fixing settlement is a good thing if you subscribe to the "What's good for Wal-Mart is good for America" philosophy, or if you don't particularly mourn the death of the indie record store. On that point, however, I think Tower would be out of business today anyway; the price-fixing ruling simply hastened their death.

You do know there are minor labels, digital distributors such as Jamendo and Magnatune, as well as unsigned/independent artists, right?
Some of music you'll find there is quite good. Subjectively, I'd even venture to say the good/bad ratio is better than the major labels.

Some of music you'll find there is quite good. Subjectively, I'd even venture to say the good/bad ratio is better than the major labels.

I'd argue that there's little subjectivity about it. Magnatune and the like don't have the money to spend on cocaine, payola, photoshoots and promotional videos so there's only really one thing left for them to concentrate on.

If you like a particular artist, you have to buy that artist's work from their label. It's not like Walmart and Target where if you don't like the price of Coca-Cola at Walmart then you can just buy it at Target. If your favorite artist's work is locked up with DRM, which you want to avoid, your only choice is to violate the DMCA. Or you can violate copyright and download it for free. What other choice do you have? Download YouTube videos of someone doing a bad cover version of the songs you like? There is no other choice.

How about not buying anything at all? Will your life come to a sudden end if you cannot listen to a handful of tunes? Not buying that music, not listening to that music, is a choice as well. And it has the major advantages that (1) it is legal, and (2) it stops putting money in the pocket of the record companies, giving them less power to corrupt laws on a worldwide scale.

I suppose this is what happens when you appoint a half-dozen ex-RIAA attorneys to top spots in the Justice Department. President Obama assured us that rules were put into place to prevent this sort of activity, but apparently that doesn't matter. Not that I'm the least bit surprised by that. Frankly, I think the Justice Department should have better things to occupy their time than civil lawsuits. That kind of bias ought to be considered malfeasance in office, or something else worthy of immediate dismissal.
1.92 million dollars for copyright violations by an individual? Now that's Justice for you. Personally, I've never believed that the law should be used to make examples out of people, no matter how distasteful their crimes. That simply breeds more disrespect for the law, which is something the RIAA is apparently unable to understand. They will continue to reap the rewards of that lack of understanding, regardless of what ultimately happens to Jammie Thomas.

What really goes on at DOJ, I can't say, but I will point out the following:

1. If President Obama's rules are being applied, the six or more ex-RIAA attorneys were recused from dealing with this case, and had nothing to do with the brief.

2. The brief's arguments are not dissimilar to the arguments made by the Bush administration when they filed their brief on this issue [ilrweb.com] (pdf) in 2007.

1. If President Obama's rules are being applied, the six or more ex-RIAA attorneys were recused from dealing with this case, and had nothing to do with the brief.

Can those rules actually be followed? I mean the DOJ shouldn't be weighing in on a civil case in the first place but what would you do when you know you bosses have a certain position and they are refrained from acting for some reason outside their own? I mean you still report to them, you still rely on them for performance reviews, raises and s

1. If President Obama's rules are being applied, the six or more ex-RIAA attorneys were recused from dealing with this case, and had nothing to do with the brief.

Can those rules actually be followed? I mean the DOJ shouldn't be weighing in on a civil case in the first place but what would you do when you know you bosses have a certain position and they are refrained from acting for some reason outside their own? I mean you still report to them, you still rely on them for performance reviews, raises and so on to some extent. You still have to worry about the boss retaliating in some way, can you really isolate them?

1. If President Obama's rules are being applied, the six or more ex-RIAA attorneys were recused from dealing with this case, and had nothing to do with the brief.

Can those rules actually be followed? I mean the DOJ shouldn't be weighing in on a civil case in the first place but what would you do when you know you bosses have a certain position and they are refrained from acting for some reason outside their own? I mean you still report to them, you still rely on them for performance reviews, raises and so on to some extent. You still have to worry about the boss retaliating in some way, can you really isolate them?

I don't know. I can tell you that guy who signed the brief as the top leading signatory is a content industry lawyer.

I am not that surprised but a bit disappointed. I thought that with Obama USA was going to take the lead on the issue of copyright in the 21st century. Do not expect many outbreaks from Europe right now. I hope he is just fixing issues by order of priority and that copyright reform is still somewhere on the list.

This doesn't deter anybody, because the fine is only $5000 and you have the same odds of being sued whether you own a computer or not. What this does is deter people from FIGHTING the unjust $5000 fine, lest you have to pay .

I got stopped in DC for jaywalking and told I could be given a '$10 ticket'. Once the policeman had explained to me that, yes, it really was illegal to cross the road in (parts of) the USA, he let me off for being English (unfortunately, this is not a blanket excuse for breaking the law in the USA, but it should be).

I'm deterred as well. Deterred from ever buying movies and music again. I haven't in some time now - ever since this absurd crusade started - and I couldn't be happier. All one needs are public libraries and http://jamendo.com/ [jamendo.com] - there's much better music on here than any of the shit you're generally going to find on major record labels anyway. Why are people still donating money to these machines? You're subsidizing tyranny over your own population.

I wish this were true. However, the Amendments to the United States Constitution limit the power of the State. The RIAA made a claim that the value of their foregone earnings is $1.92 million, and after that amount was deemed "accurate", the judge simply awarded that amount in accordance with the claim.

It's akin to this: Imagine I come up with some awesome, kickass software-product-to-end-all-software-products. This product is so awesome, I sell it for $1.92 million per license, and one of t

Enforcement of civil penalties lies with the government. How can they legally enforce a judgment which violates the 8th amendment? The fines are, after all, imposed by statute passed into law by Congress.

The Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment does not apply to punitive damages awards in cases between private parties; it does not constrain such an award when the government neither has prosecuted the action nor has any right to recover a share of the damages awarded."

In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.

Thus, in a case of willful infringement, the statutory damages [wikipedia.org] are just that: damages awarded to the plaintiff, in a case between private parties.

I think the point is that the Founding Fathers were prescient in many things. It's not about being reactionary. It's about realizing "hey, maybe there's a good reason excessive fines were explicitly made unconstitutional."

The 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

To the extent that this verdict was punative, it is an UNCONSTITUTIONAL fine in violation of the Bill of Fucking Rights. The Congress and the Judiciary both lack the authority to impose excessive fines. This can only be changed by amending the Constitution which requires ratification from 3/4ths of the States./Suck it Department of Justice!

This is because congress and judiciary doesn't really follow the constitution. If they did, welfare would be gone, social security would be gone, Public health care would be a state issue as the federal government has no authority in it.

Anyways, the term excessive, just like reasonable, and many other terms of importance in the constitution has been changed over time. This is in order to get around that pesky requirement for changing the constitution. It's now a living document that means not

There is a bill of fucking rights? Man that is going to get heavily used on slashdot. I didn't know I had the right to fuck, I just assumed it was a priviledge of the wealthy (men) and beautiful (women).

For years the Supreme Court had little to say with reference to excessive fines. In an early case, it held that it had no appellate jurisdiction to revise the sentence of an inferior court, even though the excessiveness of the fines was apparent on the face of the record.29 In a dissent, Justice Brandeis once contended that the denial of second-class mailing privileges to a newspaper on the basis of its past conduct imposed additional mailing cost, a fine in effect, which, since the costs grew indefinitely

Also interesting in the DOJ's brief is that it totally ignores the actual wording and reasoning of the Supreme Court's "due process" jurisprudence concerning "punitive awards", which we have pointed out in the past [blogspot.com]. Presumably Ms. Thomas-Rasset's lawyers will bring this to the Court's attention.

This really is a terrible stance by the DOJ. Punitive rulings are blatantly unconstitutional, and effectively punish a person for what others might do. It's also completely pointless. Few, if any, regular people have anywhere near that kind of money. All that will happen if this stands is a time in bankruptcy court, which accomplishes absolutely nothing. They might as well raise the damages to fifty billion dollars under the same logic... considering: if one large amount will deter others, then an even larg

This really is a terrible stance by the DOJ. Punitive rulings are blatantly unconstitutional, and effectively punish a person for what others might do. It's also completely pointless. Few, if any, regular people have anywhere near that kind of money. All that will happen if this stands is a time in bankruptcy court, which accomplishes absolutely nothing. They might as well raise the damages to fifty billion dollars under the same logic... considering: if one large amount will deter others, then an even larger amount is even better, right?
I honestly don't understand where this is going.

Presumably Ms. Thomas-Rasset's lawyers will bring this to the Court's attention.

While I would love to agree with you, given their conduct thus far, I am forced to wonder if they will do so. They've done, in the lay opinion of many armchair lawyers here on slashdot as well as many of the actual lawyers here, a piss-poor job of defending their client. It does not help that their client is almost certainly guilty but there are so many things that her lawyers should have done (or at least attempted) but have failed to do which makes me (and probably many others) wonder just what they are

Confirmation that trolls cannot read. Please quote where NYCL said the proper fine was $.99 per song.

:) Thanks. I have no problem with the concept of statutory damages; I have been working with it for 35 years.

Thing is, as a matter of copyright law, the courts have consistently held that the statutory damages awarded must bear a reasonable relationship to the actual damages, must be "woven from the same bolt of cloth", and cannot be divorced from economic reality. Under that principle the judge should not have allowed the jury to come back with a verdict exceeding the statutory minimum of $750 per infringed "work". [p.s. 3 songs from 1 album = 1 work].

Then, as a matter of constitutional law, the verdict should have been struck down further to a number, consistent with the US Supreme Court's "due process" jurisprudence, which was less than 10 times the amount of the actual damages. Under that jurisprudence, UMG Recordings recently argued -- when it was a defendant in a Tennessee case -- that 10 times actual damage was unconstitional, and the Court agreed, concluding that the verdict could not exceed 2 times the actual damage.

As an author, let me just say there should be a penalty -- a significant penalty -- for the wanton disregard for copyrights and intellectual property rights.

Agreed, but I don't agree that this is anywhere near reasonable. Realistically speaking, unless nobody else was seeding the same content, this person probably seeded only about ten or twenty copies each of 30 songs. The fact that they, in turn, made copies for other people is immaterial. One person cannot reasonably be held liable for the actions of another.

The retail cost of these songs, then, was likely about $300-600, but the effective value for legal purposes is a third of that ($100-200) because we're talking about revenue for the record companies, and that's what they would get after you subtract out the distributor and retailer overhead. The right fine for a first offense is probably the cost of the goods plus a $500 fine (paid to the government, NOT the record companies) and six months probation. Even the initially proposed settlement amount was absurdly more than is reasonable.

So in your fantasy world, someone who shoplifts a point-and-shoot digital camera should face a multi-million-dollar fine. That's more than a significant penalty. That's downright criminal.

Author to author, what would you propose? 20 years in prison? Significant enough? How about death? Still not enough? How about having the accused waterboarded to extract confessions, followed by months of really gruesome torture, then stoning them death? Maybe you'd just like to enslave them and use them as your personal chattel? Never mind, that's pretty close to what these "judgments" do.

Their reasoning is correct in that the only way to make any kind of difference is probably to make an example of a few people, but they are also basically admitting that this is not justice. Have they thought for a second of what would happen to the economy if these kinds of damages actually were to be forced from everyone who has downloaded?It is sad to see the Departement of Justice agreeing with something like this.

So in other words, the system is working as designed. If you have a problem with the laws, talk to Congress or the SCOTUS. It never fails to amaze me how our Congress escapes blame for the mess the US has become. Perhaps it's because the only check they have is for our nations one Chief of the Armed Forces (not busy at all . ..) has to proofread all the fine print that 535 corporate-influenced blowhards can vomit out, and decide if these expansive and pork-laden bills will do more good than harm.

Why would congress listen to you, or me, or anyone else except a lobbyist with a lot of money? Individual people are just one vote and bring nothing else to the table. Most everyone on Capitol Hill is either corrupt or already has their own agenda that the wishes of the American people probably don't fit into. SCOTUS is even less accountable than congress is.

Should I remind us of the TARP legislation and the democrats crying about government money going to pay bonuses when is was in the legislation they passed and they are the ones who put it in the damn thing in the first place.

Being in congress is a status symbol for some. It isn't about what's done, it's about what they can claim they did. Even when they hopelessly fail like Ted Kennedy's HMOs created in the 1960's in which he is decrying as the r

In fact, the same stupid rationale for all draconian anti-drug laws: if you make the punishment really harsh, people won't do drugs. And just look how well it works! Everyone knows there aren't any junkies in New York!

Wouldn't it be fun if these congress people were found to be using unlicensed navigation code on their own websites, with the original copyright claim removed along with the author's credit?

I mean, any website is more or less bound to serve up more than 24 copies. I mean, obviously these congress men and women will gladly pay these damages - it's not like they are unconstitutional or shocks the conciousness, right?

And again - a disclaimer: Don't go breaking into these people's web servers to do anything ill

As I understand it, isn't the justice department required to act in defense of any law that is being constitutionally challenged? This is just the bizarre ethics of the legal profession... truth be damned, give the best defense (of the unconscionable) that you can.

"The Copyright Act's statutory damages provision serves both to compensate and deter. Congress established a scheme to allow copyright holders to elect to receive statutory damages for copyright infringement instead of actual damages and profits because of the difficulty of calculating and proving actual damages."

Damages to WHAT, again? Cry me a fucking river, assholes. They make it sound like someone is actually stealing from someone else... and like copyright is actually a right. Well, no. Go check the US constitution: Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, aka "Copyright Clause". It says copyright exists to promote the progress of science and useful arts.

See? Copyright is not a right. It is not a property. It is not life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It is a GOVERNMENT-GRANTED TEMPORARY MONOPOLY. It has a very specific purpose: an incentive to the creation of works of art and science, for the good of society as a whole; the welfare of copyright holders is not - AND SHOULD NOT BE - a concern at all.

Copyright was never "good" per se, more like a "necessary evil" - it is a temporary hindrance to everyone's access to a work of art or science, in exchange to the very existence of that given work. It is ludicrous to think a century-long copyright is an incentive to the creation of more works, therefore one must assume it must be reformed, reversed to a more sensible; but, frankly, I doubt it fulfills its supposed purpose at any length. Therefore it is simply "evil", and ought to be ABOLISHED.

"Congress established a scheme to allow copyright holders to elect to receive statutory damages for copyright infringement instead of actual damages and profits because of the difficulty of calculating and proving actual damages."

You have to wonder about a statement like that. It's basically an admission that they have no way of knowing how much 'theft' has occurred, if any, so they arbitrarily assign a value based on, what, a guess? Even if this dude somehow managed to serve up 5000 complete songs to oth

Piracy should be dealt with in the same way ICAAN dealt with domain tasting. For individuals running a P2P program in which they gain no money from the distribution, $30 per song is plenty for compensation. $100 per song is perfectly fine for punitive damages. If that's not enough money to make up for legal fees, get together with law enforcement and legislators and create a system similar to parking or speeding tickets. That'll keep costs down.

If I got caught illegally distributing 10 songs and got slapped with a $1300 fine (enough to purchase 100x the number of songs I got for free), I'd think twice about piracy. And that's an amount I can pay off. I keep that much in reserve at all times for car repairs, emergencies, etc.

1.92 million dollars is some fucking criminal, life-ruining BULLSHIT. Bankruptcy and garnished wages for life is not an acceptable outcome for a truly petty crime.

Someone needs to get into the next town hall meeting Obama attends and ask this question. Someone needs to get the words in roughly the form I have written here to the president of the United States on a televised, public event.

"Byng's execution was satirized by Voltaire in his novel Candide. In Portsmouth, Candide witnesses the execution of an officer by firing squad; and is told that "in this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others" (Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres)."

If copyright law is so easily and repeatedly broken by tens to hundreds of millions of users, then that should be taken as a strong signal that this law is counter to the values of society and inherently anti-democratic.

you should really change your name to the Department of Injustice, because what you do has nothing to do with justice and all to do with propping up corporate greed, maybe the Department of Greedy CockSuckers would be a name that would suit you even better...

The story seems to suggest that the DOJ said that a $1.92 million was perfectly constitutional. My interpretation of the brief seems that the DOJ did not specifically say that. What the brief said was that DOJ considers statutory damages as envisioned by the Copyright Act as legal and that imposing statutory damages does not violate due process. The amount of the damage, however, is up to the trial court to decide and the DOJ was not going to second-guess the court on the amount. The DOJ only responded to Ms. Thomas' constitutional challenges not the actual award:

This discussion is not to suggest an answer of whether an award should be remitted in this particular case, but rather to suggest an answer to such a question should precede any resolution of Ms. Thomas' constitutional arguments.

The story seems to suggest that the DOJ said that a $1.92 million was perfectly constitutional. My interpretation of the brief seems that the DOJ did not specifically say that.

While you are correct that it did not specifically say that, it did say that the verdict passes constitutional muster. When it said this:

This discussion is not to suggest an answer of whether an award should be remitted in this particular case, but rather to suggest an answer to such a question should precede any resolution of Ms. Thomas' constitutional arguments.

it was referring to a non-constitutional, "common law", ground for setting aside the verdict. It did specifically say that if the Court does not find a "common law" ground for setting the verdict aside, it should let the verdict stand, which is tantamount to saying that the verdict passes constitutional muster, which any honest lawyer knows it does not.

A posting from today on NYCL's site [blogspot.com] indicates that the lead DOJ lawyer in this opinion has a media industry background. Evidently, he was a partner at a law firm that represented a music publisher's association.

Just another reason to throw the whole establishment out -- Democrats and Republicans -- and elect an entirely new government that actually has a clue about how unreasonable this all is. And until that can happen, stop them from committing any more damage on the rest of us. All that never-actually-defined Hope and Change isn't working out at all well from my vantage point.

Are you the same troll or a different one? How many here would say the penalty for your hypothetical situation should be 800 billion dollars? I would wager it would be a lot less than the number of asshats like you that think this is a valid penalty.

How about using an actual scenario to back up your point instead of a hypothetical scenario you yourself made up?

As for the multiplier value: a reasonable value may be in the range of 1.10 to 2.00. What we're complaining about is that this value is in the range of 1000-10000.

Why is this value so extremely high? Because many other people are guilty for the same "crime" as well. How about this: if many tens to hundreds of millions of people are supposedly breaking a law, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate the l

Being pro-corporate is not a bad thing. Everyone needs jobs. Being pro corporate above and beyond the health of society is. Don't be fooled into thinking the government should be anti-corporation because that will just leave you unemployed like a good bit of America is right now.

Does anybody know if this woman is accepting contributions?
Maybe the proper way to fight this BS could be to put our money where our mouth is. I would certainly send some money to support her.

I'm sure you could send the contribution to her attorneys.

In my personal opinion, the best place to which to make contributions to fight the RIAA scourge is to make a tax deductible contribution to the Expert Witness Defense Fund [fsf.org] managed by the Free Software Foundation. All the proceeds of the contributions will go to helping RIAA defendants retain the help of tech experts and tech consultants. They made a $3000 grant to Ms. Thomas to enable her to hire an expert witness.